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Principles of Collective Leadership

One Hood will use the portions of the Sankofan model of “go back and fetch it” to serve as the theme of what we wish to promote. The Afrikan Sankofan symbol, drawn as a bird with its head turned toward what is behind it, is designed to remind us that we have to understand our past in order to correctly interpret the present. With an understanding of the values that enabled our ancestors to survive the horrors of slavery and injustice in the United States, we can better understand what direction we should currently be moving in.

PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP

It is the goal of One Hood United that chapters and branches are established in every city, state and region across the country and every chapter/branch shall possess autonomy in implementing the One Hood United agenda based on its resources and vision. All One Hood United chapters/branches shall be guided by Coordinating Committees composed of activists who are culturally, politically and socially conscious and are dedicated to developing and protecting our communities. The Coordinating Committees will be responsible for developing social justice and human rights programs that serve the community. Coordinating Committee members will be chosen by invitation and vote which will be based on his/her conscious and revolutionary perspective, commitment, and character. All Coordinating Committee decisions will be made by dialogue and consensus. To pursue a One Hood United agenda, all Chapters should establish various working committees – such as Youth, Cultural, Political, Community Empowerment (economics, education), Women’s, Self Defense, Elders Councils, Media, Health & Safety, etc. – that will serve the interests and needs of the neighborhood and liberate our communities block by block.

The Nguzo Saba Principles

Umoja (Unity): To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems and to solve them together

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

New Afrikan Creed

1. i believe in the spirituality, humanity and genius of [New Afrikan] people, and in our new pursuit of these values.

2. i believe in the family and the community, and in the community as a family, and i will work to make this concept live.

3. i believe in the community as more important than the individual.

4. i believe in constant struggle for freedom, to end oppression, and build a better world. i believe in collective struggle, in fashioning victory in concert with my brothers and sisters.

5. i believe that the fundamental reason our oppression continues is that We, as a people, lack the power to control our lives.

6. i believe that the fundamental way to gain that power, and end oppression, is to build a sovereign [New Afrikan] nation.

7. i believe that all the land in America, upon which We have lived for a long time, which We have worked and built upon, and which We have fought to stay on, is land that belongs to us as a people.

8. i believe in the Malcolm X Doctrine: that We must organize upon this land, and hold a plebiscite, to tell the world by a vote that We are free and our land independent, and that, after the vote, We must stand ready to defend ourselves, establishing the nation beyond contradiction.

9. Therefore, i pledge to struggle without cease, until We have won sovereignty. i pledge to struggle without fail until we have built a better condition than the world has yet known.

10. i will give my life, if that is necessary; i will give my time, my mind, my strength, and my wealth because this IS necessary.

11. i will follow my chosen leaders and help them.

12. i will love my brothers and sisters as myself.

13. i will steal nothing from a brother or sister, cheat no brother or sister, misuse no brother or sister, inform on no brother or sister, and spread no gossip.

14. i will keep myself clean in body, dress and speech, knowing that i am a light set on a hill, a true representative of what We are building.

15. i will be patient and uplifting with the deaf, dumb and blind, and i will seek by word and deed to heal the [New Afrikan] family, to bring into the Movement and into the Community mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters left by the wayside.

Now, freely and of my own wiII, i pledge this Creed, for the sake of freedom for my people and a better world, on pain of disgrace and banishment if i prove false. For, i am no longer deaf, dumb or blind. I am, by inspiration of the ancestors and grace of the Creator-a New Afrikan.